Animated short films are a unique form of storytelling that allows you to bring your characters and ideas to life. If you’ve ever considered telling your own visual story but haven’t been sure of how to get started, you’ve come to the right place. Written by experienced animators and producers, this book provides practical and insightful ideas into how to use Autodesk® 3ds Max® for your own short fi lm productions. It is about using the tools in 3ds Max to create short films that are on par with feature films. It teaches 3ds Max users everything about animated fi lm creation from coming up with a story, storyboards, character rigging, and animation to lighting, lip syncing, facial animation, and editing. The book provides a unique look at film production through the use of an actual film, Vacant Planet: A Curious Bit of Scrap as a case study. This case study is evaluated through a series of tutorials in you will create using methods similar scenes to those found in Vacant Planet. Using the insights and techniques highlighted in the case study, along with the files on the companion DVD-ROM, you will work through the entire process and be ready to turn your own stories into animated tales. The book does assume prior 3ds Max knowledge and is written for users who want to turn their skills toward creating short films. This is a must-have book for 3ds max users, film artists, and character animators who want to use Max’s animation power to the fullest!

KEY FEATURES: * Details the entire process of creating a short fi lm from story inception to using 3ds Max to produce the film * Provides the only complete guide to detailed animated film production with 3ds Max * Uses a real film series, Vacant Planet, to instruct through tutorials and case studies * Includes color inserts illustrating the techniques covered * Includes a DVD-ROM with the entire short Vacant Planet: A Curious Bit of Scrap, and the sample animations from the book. It also includes all of the tutorial files, a fully set up character that readers can animate with right away, and clips of original dialogue to animate to

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS Windows 2000 or Windows XP 256 MB of RAM and an Intel P4 1.4 (or equivalent AMD processor) or better.

Professional Short Films with 3ds max is about using the tools in 3ds max to create short films that are on par with feature films. It teaches 3ds max users everything about animated film creation from coming up with a story, storyboards, character rigging, and animation to lighting, lip syncing, facial animation, and editing.

The book provides a unique look at film production through the use of an actual film, Vacant Planet: A Curious Bit of Scrap as a case study. This case study is evaluated through a series of tutorials in which readers will create similar scenes to those found in Vacant Planet. Using the insights and techniques highlighted in the case study along with the files on the companion DVD-ROM, users will work through the creation of their own animated film. By the end of the book, they’ll know how to take their animations from good to great!

The book assumes prior 3ds max knowledge and is written for users who want to turn their skills toward creating short films. This is a must-have book for 3ds max users, film artists, and character animators who wish to see how to use max’s animation power to the fullest!

KEY FEATURES:
* Details the entire process of creating a short film from story inception to using 3ds max to produce the film
* Provides the only complete guide to detailed animated film production with 3ds max
* Uses a real film series, Vacant Planet, to instruct through tutorials and case studies
* Includes a DVD-ROM with the entire short Vacant Planet: A Curious Bit of Scrap, exclusive sneak peaks at future episodes, and the sample animations from the book. It also includes all of the tutorial files, a fully set up character that readers can animate with right away, and clips of original dialogue to animate to
* Includes color inserts illustrating the techniques covered

Had a lot of potential but fell short of the mark

I would have like to give this book a 5 stars like the other guys but like I said I think the book had a lot of promise potential but miss the mark. so to me I could only give it 2 and a half star because it seem like only half of the information was there which was alot of good information but at the same time some subjects were left out or wasn’t covered enough or just skimmed over that should have been covered like at the end of the book he talks about his short film he finished. which could have been better spent with exercises on the subject like compositing, post-production work etc. maybe use combuston or adobe after effects, there were no exercises on that.

In some case no explanations on the how and why. like you do a little of rigging, skinning and animation then you get to facial animation but there is no real talk about morph targets explanation about them how to set them up for animation. its like you are just thrown into facial animation with no explanation of morph targets or how that is set them up, then there are files missing from the cd which is supposed to go along with the book and some type o’s .

I e-mailed the authors which sometimes it seem like forever getting a response back from them on issues and questions about the book.and even then answers semmed kind of vague or I didn’t really feel like he answer my question(s) that was asked. I would think if I was going to put out an book I would have and or make the time to respond back to those who may have questions about the book. which brings me to another thing. I have gotten other books in the past dealing with 3d, and I have never had to write the author because something didn’t make sense maybe once because of a type-o. usually the book explained it well enough.

so there was no question as to what that the author(s) were trying to say or the point they were trying to get across. I said that to say just because you know something and do it well, does not mean you can teach it well. one of the reviews here talk about how the authors had all of the experience working in the 3d field.

"Professional short films" book title itself is a big range to cover. and the book does not do that well covering it. I know that because having went through the book I still have questions which makes me want to go back through the book but I know the answers are not there.

The book probably should have been called "Animation 101". don’t get me wrong, I did walk away from the book feeling like I did learn something but at the same time I have more question about things that should have been answered along with the other information I did learn.

When I think of the word film(s) or movie I think of a finished product like if you went to see a movie. you wouldn’t go spend money to watch half or part of a movie would you? the projects in this book should have lead up to a finished product but they didn’t nor did the book itself lead up to a finished products. which is where I also think the book fell short of its mark. If I could do it over I don’t think I would spend my hard earned money of this book.you would be better off searching the web for tutorial on the subject.

Good, Inspirational Book!

I would suggest this book wether you are just starting out in 3D or getting ready to animate..I found it a good source of inspiration, Even tho I still have no time for my own projects! :-)

Well worth the $$

How to do Professional Quality Annimation

As can be seen from looking at any list of movies there has been a dramatic increase in the number of annimated films. Of course this comes from the advailability of powerful software to assist in the production of such films rather than the manual drawing required in earlier days.

Originally only the highest performance computers were capable of producing computer generated graphics. The 1982 movie ’TRON’ a mixture of live action and computer generation used a Cray supercomputer to do the graphics using custom written software. Now computers with several time the performance of the Cray are avaiable on the desktop.

To go with the powerful computers has come standard, commercially packaged software oriented to annimation. In this book Autodesk 3ds Max is used to produce short films that may be called for by industrial or advertising users.

The two authors have years of experience in computer annimation using 3ds Max. They bring a view from the front line of users needing a film rather than just a teacher going through the features of the program. In fact it presumes that you have the basics of the program understood and are now ready to do useful work.

From devising a story and storyboards to rigging characters and animation

Chris Neuhahn and Josh Book’s Professional Short Films With Autodesk 3DS Max teaches how to use the tools in 3ds Max to create short films, from devising a story and storyboards to rigging characters and animation, using different techniques in the process, and editing to produce a polished product. An actual film, Vacant Planet: a Curious Bit of Scrap, is used as a case study and files on the accompanying DVD-ROM help users develop their own stories for an animated tale. You have to have prior 3ds Max basics down to benefit: this is for the user who wants to move on to more professional pursuits in the short film format.